Where does all the pain go? Does God have some kind of cosmic vacuum cleaner that sucks up all the pain from the earth and dumps it into an incinerator of some kind? Or maybe he dumps it into hell for the eternal suffering of those who have rejected Him. There's probably no theological argument that could be made for such a notion, but human logic that includes the God of the Bible in its equations might make sense of it.
This week I am feeling as though I relate to a teeny tiny fraction of a sliver of a small part of God's experience in his relationships with humans. That is, although God is aware of all the pain and suffering of humans, and loves each one very much, He does not internalize our pain in a way that weakens or diminishes Him in any way. But this has nothing to do with caring or not caring. He cares more than any human can care, and yet He is fully involved and separated at the same time.
God has entrusted some big pain to me recently. For a change it is the pain of others and not my own. He has brought four women to me, each distinct and separate from the others, none of them connected to any of the others in any way. And yet God has put each of these women into my life and moved my heart to come alongside them in their pain. It is a faith-building experience, to say the least.
For nearly six decades I have bumbled and stumbled my way through my life, and I have accepted the fact that, since I have no script, that is the best I will probably ever do. But it's one thing to bumble and stumble my way through my own life, and quite another to bumble and stumble through someone else's! If I don't hear God clearly when I ask Him for direction or wisdom concerning an issue in my own life, well, I will probably learn something from my mistake. But I don't want someone else who is depending on me for godly wisdom to have to learn from my mistake!
So the first thing I'm learning from being so involved in the excruciating pain of other women's lives is that it is a very humbling role to be in. What if I get it wrong when they ask for my counsel? What if I give a wrong interpretation while trying to help them untangle the knots of a complicated situation? What if I draw a wrong conclusion about some confusing circumstances? What if I inadvertently, though with good motives, console when I should be challenging? What if I inadvertently, though with good motives, challenge when I should be consoling? Such motivation for abiding in Christ and staying tightly attached to the Vine there has never been! The only hope I have for getting anything right when dealing with someone else's pain is to be so closely aligned with Christ that I can be reasonably sure, by faith, that He will put His thoughts into my brain when I need to speak words of counsel. There is no room for excuses in my own walk of faith. If I give a foothold to the devil which leads to some type of deception in my own life, that's bad enough. But God forbid that I give a foothold to the devil and thereby lead someone else into deception!
The second thing I'm learning is that there is no room for internalizing the pain of others. It is debilitating. It will prevent me from seeing clearly. It will hinder my ability to walk by another person's side on their path of pain without becoming weakened as they are. And it can easily lead to the deception that I have some kind of responsibility to reach into that person and remove the agony from her heart. Since it is obviously impossible for me to do that since only God can heal a broken heart, to take on such a role would elevate myself in my own mind to a presumptuous level where only God has the right to reside. Self-exaltation. Bondage, pure and simple. No, I cannot carry the searing pain of another human being without it destroying me as it is threatening to destroy her. And then what good would I be to her? I have to entrust her pain to the Lord, knowing that it is in good hands and He will do what needs to be done to strengthen her through this fiery trial in her life, and ultimately heal her heart. I have to get out of God's way so He can work.
What a relief it is to know that I do not have to be God. I only have to be a friend. I only have to love, and be faithful, and be willing to give of whatever I have to give. God will do a fine job of being Himself.
